


Ask not of me to Kill

by musicalgirl4474



Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Blood, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, JUST, Suicidal Thoughts, Whumptober 2020, Wounds, injuries, kind of, not a good time for Alexander, prisoner exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26964844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicalgirl4474/pseuds/musicalgirl4474
Summary: Finally, the continental army is getting their General's right-hand man back. Mostly.Whumptober #11Psych 101Defiance/Struggling/CryingMostly that last one? This isn't quite as whumpy as the title and summary would have you think. It's almost got a happy ending.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956718
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67





	Ask not of me to Kill

It was Meade who first caught sight of the British party, and it was Meade whose disgusted noise reached Lafayette’s ears.

“What is it?” He asked, and Meade handed him the spyglass.

“Look at what they’ve done to him,” the aide says angrily, “ought to kill all of their officers we have in retribution; their ten men are in fine shape!”

It takes Lafayette a moment to find the riders, and when he does he feels his own blood boil, in the way that other French nobles said was the curse of all du Motier men. Alexander was clothed only in his breeches, not nearly warm enough for the autumn air, which had frosted their breath when they had set out from camp themselves. His right leg was dark in color, and his ankles tethered together under the horse’s chest. The real outrage however, was that the traitor Arnold had him riding on his very same horse! Lafayette grit his teeth, but now was not the time to get back at the turn-coat. No, now his attention should be for poor Alexander, who was collapsed forward against the horse’s neck, skin paler than he had ever seen it, spine sticking out against the skin of his back.

“Hold, Lieutenant colonel,” he said quietly. “We will worry about retribution once we have our man back with us and safe from the redcoats’ not-so-tender mercies.”

Meade muttered rebelliously, but nodded his head. The Patriots behind them shifted with restless energy, the only still members of the group the two men holding the ten prisoners under gunpoint to keep them from running early. The ten officers had been hell to have in camp, constantly sowing discord, spitting at the continental soldiers, refusing any food of a ‘lower quality’ . . . it was obvious that Hamilton had not been treated well, and Lafayette did let his mind wander for a moment to torturing their own prisoners as Hamilton seemed to have been. His blood sang at the idea, but he knew that their honorable General would never allow it.

‘For Hamilton, he might,’ Lafayette supposed, but no, he wouldn’t. Honor was as important to winning this war as gunpowder. They would need to fight with Honor if Lafayette could feel confident in finding more aid from France.

Lafayette would like to say that the trade goes smoothly. It doesn’t. When the redcoats dismount from their horses a good twenty paces from the continental party, Hamilton is kept astride the horse. Lafayette stares Arnold down, waiting for the traitor to untie his friend’s ankles so that he might stand on his own two feet (if that dark bruise on his right leg did not hide a broken bone).

The general working of prisoner exchanges is that each side lets their prisoners go at the same time; but with ten officers going, and only one returning, Lafayette would not put it past the British former-prisoners to attack Hamilton on his way back to them.

“I’m afraid young Hamilton is quite unable to walk at the moment,” Arnold calls, “so I will send Colonel Jacobs over with the horse carrying him as you send our men back to us, if such pleases you.” Lafayette nods sharply, wanting little more than to get this over and done with, to have Hamilton back in friendly hands.

Alexander is still slumped over the horse’s neck, and Lafayette wonders if he is unconscious. He’s never seen Alexander so still outside of sleep. He gives the signal to let the ten prisoners go. The two groups meet ten paces in, and Lafayette holds his breath until they pass.

Jacobs stops a few paces from them, and Lafayette sends Meade to meet him. Jacobs cuts the rope between Alexander’s ankles unceremoniously and lets the man fall to the side; Lafayette bites back an enraged sound, a few of the men behind him are not so discreet. Meade manages to catch the other aide, but not before Hamilton’s injured leg connects with the hard ground.

In the meantime, Colonel Jacobs has swung himself into the horse’s saddle and galloped back to the British.

Lafayette seethes behind his calm facade and runs to where Meade is struggling with Alexander’s unconscious weight, little though it is.

“Mon dieu.” He cannot help the startled half-prayer half-swear that leaves him at the sight that greets him. The end of Alexander’s right arm is covered in what looks to be the remains of his shirt, but those remains are stained so red with what must be blood that he cannot tell for sure. He helps situate Alexander in Meade’s arms and calls loudly for the men to ready to march back to camp. Alexander needs a doctor, and quickly.

He does not even notice that he is crying until he feels something wet slide to his jaw. His friend is skin-and-bones -not that he has ever been a particularly healthy weight-, his red hair is a tangled and matted mess, his lower right leg may well be broken, he is missing a HAND, and, worst of all, there are bloody marks on his once-white breeches in places Lafayette would rather not think about. There are things he had not thought even Arnold would stoop to.

It was a lucky thing that they had transported the ten pampered British officers in a cart, rather than horseback. His stomach lurched at the thought of tying Hamilton to one in his condition. He had to be in such terrible pain.

“Laf?” The sound was quieter than a breeze, and raspier than a hornet’s nest, but it was the most beautiful sound he had heard for days. He turned to where Alexander had been placed on the blankets covering the floor of the rough cart.

“Alexandre,” he said, affection suffusing his voice. “I’ve got you, mon ami. Do not worry, we are bringing you back to camp.”

Alexander’s violet-blue eyes were sheathed suddenly in tears of their own. “Don’t let him send me away,” he choked, and for a moment, Lafayette was confused. Then he was horrified as Alexander continued “rather kill me, please, don’t- never again, please, don’t let-”

“Hush!” Distraught. That was the word for what Lafayette was feeling. Totally and utterly distraught. His stomach was hollow with dread, and those pesky tears were back. He pet through Alexander’s hair for a moment, trying to calm him, trying to reassure him that whatever he was so scared of, wasn’t going to happen. His hand came away wet with blood. “Oh Alexander-” Lafayette pulls himself into the cart next to the shivering man, stripping off his blue coat and covering the shivering form in it.

“Laf please-”

“No one will leave you anywhere, you belong in camp, same as the rest of us-”

“Broken,” the man replied, tears dripping from his eyes. “Too broken; he’ll discharge me, I don’t have anywhere to GO, please, a merciful death, all I want, please-”

“You are not thinking straight,” Lafayette said desperately. His own eyes were beginning to tear again. He signaled Meade to begin leading them back to camp. “You are not- no, we will not kill you, and no one will discharge you. Mon Dieu, but you must get better, oh Alexander . . .”

“Don’t cry,” Alexander said, and he sounded so exhausted, his voice so painful in his throat, that Lafayette could only sob.

**Author's Note:**

> Woot! Hamilton's back with his side again! I . . . need to catalogue a list of his injuries. Heck I put him through the ringer. or, rather Arnold did . . . *laughs nervously* putting aside that I wrote Arnold as considerably creepier than he was in real life . . . . and so am at least partially to blame . . . .


End file.
